Game Day: Hawaii vs New Mexico State

Here's last night's Chawan's Cut of game previews from KGMB, KITV and KHON.



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Jason Kaneshiro has a game preview.

In years past, New Mexico State's Air Raid offense kept the Aggies in the upper reaches of the statistical rankings with quarterback Chase Holbrook and receiver Chris Williams -- who torched Hawaii for 221 yards and three touchdowns last year -- as their weapons of choice.

This time, the Warriors (3-6, 1-5 WAC) face a New Mexico State team scraping the bottom of the national rankings in offensive production while putting more emphasis on ball control and defense under first-year head coach DeWayne Walker.

Stephen Tsai has a game preview along with breakdowns of the offense, defense and specialists of both teams.

Dave Reardon hopes the Warriors don't change too much from last week.

Don't change too much.

Especially the uniforms. That's a no-brainer, they got rave reviews.

The green jerseys and white pants are a winner, and Hawaii came out on the right side of a 49-36 score wearing them last week against Utah State.

"We'll ask the players, but they've got my vote," coach Greg McMackin said of the combination of threads -- which was not worn during UH's six-game losing streak.

Have the same guy sing the anthem. The band can dress up in Halloween costumes again.

You can even let the Sports Animals repeat the pregame toss; apparently they're undefeated in that role. But I'm told it is feared they may make off with the coin.

And the people who complain about Coach Mack's $1.1 million salary definitely have a point, but it's sad that so many of them come off as condescending douchebags.

Murray Sperber, professor emeritus at Indiana University and author of several books critical of the growth of college athletics, said what a college pays its football coach is where it sets it priorities.

"At a time when the university (of Hawai'i) is cutting employees and shrinking academic departments and functions, its pay of an ever-increasing amount to its head football coach clearly signals that it values entertaining football above academics," he said. "That's a sad state of affairs."

Davis said the media share the blame.

"Look at (The Advertiser) — how much sports coverage do you have compared to education?" he said. "The same goes for TV news. Education only gets coverage when it suffers furlough days. I wonder how many of your readers even know the difference between academics and sports. They think football, not science."

Now that's how you get people over to your side. Way to go.